Technology Predictions for 2013 - Straight from the Magic 8-Ball

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As a duly designated member of the online press (honest, I've got the press passes and scribbled notes to prove it) it's my sworn duty to commemorate the coming of a new year with a set of vague and highly unlikely predictions. This is of course not meant to provide you with any meaningful data or hot stock recommendations and is instead meant only to further the mistaken impression that I actually have a clue of what is going on in this industry. So here then dear reader are my predictions for the technology world for 2013. At the end of the year, don't say I didn't tell you so!

1. Samsung and Apple finally end their Patent Wars - which goes to prove that imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, and also a great way to grab the number one spot in handset market share.

2. Android is ported to the Microsoft Surface RT Tablet - While Microsoft isn't terribly happy with the hack, owners of the best tablet hardware made will FINALLY be able to get some decent apps.

3. iPhone 6 is launched - In another grand "innovation" Apple will add yet another row of icons. You will of course buy it by the millions and tout it as the single best phone in the known world to every Starbucks patron you happen across. Sadly, the first time you sync it with iTunes you find out that the iPhone 7 is only weeks away from release.

4. Google Glass is released - like we nerds don't look dorky enough in our regular glasses, these will be guaranteed to make sure that we never date again.

5. Facebook makes unwanted changes that push millions to leave the service - fortunately for Facebook while going to the cancellation page users are distracted by a video of a singing cat that their aunt posted and forget to complete the cancellation.

6. Apple releases a TV - unfortunately there aren't any shows available as actors like Ashton Kutcher refuse to give up 30% of his $700,000 per episode salary to cover Apple's TVStore cut.

7. HTML 5 is finally ratified by the W3C - That means only five more years until developers can count on the new tags actually working the same way in each browser! Now that's a standard!

8. "The Cloud" gets even bigger - this happens despite companies like Netflix learning that clouds in large numbers can ruin your whole holiday.

9. Microsoft will bring back the Start Button - People who stayed with Windows 7 will rejoice while everybody who has been using Windows 8 for more than a week won't care in the slightest. In a related note, Office users seeing the success at reversing Microsoft's product decisions start a grass roots campaign to bring back Clippy.

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Contributor

Paul Ballard

Paul Ballard is a Chief Architect specializing in large scale distributed system development and enterprise software processes. Paul has more than twenty years of development experience including being a former Microsoft MVP, a speaker at technical conferences such as Microsoft Tech-Ed and VSLive, and a published author. Prior to working on the Windows platform, he built software using a vast array of technologies including Java, Unix, C, and even OS/2.